Coal:Looking into 2019, “there’s very little upside, let’s put it that way.”

It’s been a year of ups and downs for the coal industry. Even while the White House considered different ways to extend a lifeline for coal plants and proposed a replacement for the Clean Power Plan that may soften emissions regulations, many generators still faced a difficult market. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) projected this month that 2018 will end with 14 gigawatts of coal retirements, second to only 2015. Earlier in the year, a report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis suggested retirements would even surpass 2015, at 15.4 gigawatts.